He was folksy, flamboyant and colourful. He was the farmer in the iconic green Stetson. He was blunt and rough around the edges. At times he was the antithesis of all things politically correct.

And, while nobody said it in so many words, he was also the guy who made being minister of agriculture seem almost sexy. Perhaps that’s because being in a Pierre Trudeau government was sexy in itself. Regardless, Whelan is likely the only MP to hold that post and have his name remembered because of it.[3]

I remember one time when I was out West, someone asked me what the hell I knew, coming from Ontario, about being minister of agriculture and I said I knew just as much as Allan Blakeney, premier of Saskatchewan who was born in Nova Scotia, or Don Getty in Alberta who was born in Quebec, or Bill Vander Zalm in B.C. who came from Holland. The fact is that I came from the most diversified farming region in the country, and we were diversified farmers ourselves. We had it all and I was an agriculture minister who really had hands on experience.[11]

During his time as Minister, he promoted the extension of national marketing boards — first implemented with the creation of the Canadian Dairy Commission in 1970 — to eggs in 1972, turkey in 1974, and chicken in 1978,[12] which were placed under the supervision of the National Farm Products Council. For those commodities not under supply management, he fought to maintain a level playing field in world markets at a time of heavy subsidization in other countries. He was successful in getting the Canadian government to increase its support for farmers, through amendments to the Agricultural Stabilization Act[13][14] and the introduction of the Western Grain Stabilization Act.[12][14][15] In 1977, the Advance Payments for Crops Act was passed,[16] which guaranteed loans to producers requiring advance payments for perishable crops. He opened markets in the Soviet Union for Canadian wheat, and established legislation to protect fruit and vegetable growers from processor bankruptcies.[10] He also restricted the powers of the Canadian Wheat Board, allowing private-sector feed grain trading and interprovincial movement of feed.[12]

Whelan's English was rough-hewn, and his French was non-existent. He openly acknowledged this, exclaiming:

Whelan was one of Pierre Trudeau's best constitutional campaigners. However, in 1976 angry Quebec dairy farmers threw diluted milk on Whelan after cabinet refused to approve dairy subsidies to compensate farmers in a collapsed world market. Whelan said this refusal helped elect the Parti Québécois in rural ridings that fall.[17]

He became a well-known figure because of his green stetson hat and being an ardently vociferous advocate for the agricultural sector with a habit for plain-spokenness (which occasionally got him in trouble).[18] In response to complaints voiced over the cost of food, wishing to stress that the average farmer received little profit in producing,[1] he said:

The cost of cars, fur coats, housing, booze, travel goes up and who gets excited? Nobody, because they don’t buy these things every day. Potatoes go up a few cents and my God, everybody’s crying.[1]

During his last term as Minister of Agriculture, Whelan became good friends with Aleksandr Yakovlev, then the USSR's Ambassador to Canada, as both men were ardent agriculturalists. The relationship became so close that Pierre Trudeau called him in to get assurance that he had not divulged any national secrets, as Whelan was a member of the Cabinet defence committee.[19] When Mikhail Gorbachev, then Soviet Minister of Agriculture, came to Canada in 1983, Yakovlev connected Gorbachev with Whelan, who arranged a three-week tour across Canada for both Soviet officials, accompanied fully by Whelan. Jean Chrétien later recalled (in 2013) Gorbachev experiencing Canada up close, when the tour came to Windsor:

'He came to Windsor and introduced him to the life of a Canadian,' Chretien said. 'He was amazed at the food processing in Canada, to have all the food available so quickly. Later on, they were driving and he was marvelling to see two cars in front of every house.'

The group stopped in front of one blue-collar home.

'Gorbachev said, "Do you know them?" And Gene said, "I don’t know them, but they know me,"' Chretien recalled. 'So they knocked on the door and went into the house. Gorbachev was very impressed by that.'[20]

At the end of that tour, the Whelans hosted a farewell reception for Gorbachev at their Amherstburg home on the evening of 19 May 1983, but Whelan himself was delayed in arriving. In what has since been called "the walk that changed the world", Yakovlev and Gorbachev took a walk in a nearby orchard, strolled among saplings and then past fields of corn, soy and wheat, had an earnest discussion, and resolved that the old ways in the USSR had to end.[21][22] According to Yakovlev's own words, this was where perestroika was born, with 80% of its features covered in that brief time in Whelan's back yard.[2][23][24]

In an interview years later, Yakovlev recalled:

At first we kind of sniffed around each other and our conversations didn't touch on serious issues. And then, verily, history plays tricks on one, we had a lot of time together as guests of then Liberal Minister of Agriculture Eugene Whelan in Canada who, himself, was too late for the reception because he was stuck with some striking farmers somewhere. So we took a long walk on that Minister's farm and, as it often happens, both of us suddenly were just kind of flooded and let go. I somehow, for some reason, threw caution to the wind and started telling him about what I considered to be utter stupidities in the area of foreign affairs, especially about those SS-20 missiles that were being stationed in Europe and a lot of other things. And he did the same thing. We were completely frank. He frankly talked about the problems in the internal situation in Russia. He was saying that under these conditions, the conditions of dictatorship and absence of freedom, the country would simply perish. So it was at that time, during our three-hour conversation, almost as if our heads were knocked together, that we poured it all out and during that three-hour conversation we actually came to agreement on all our main points.[25]

Eugene Whelan also actively participated in the Agri-Energy Roundtable (AER) an international non-governmental organization which forged a dialogue between food surplus and energy surplus nations, their private sectors and multilateral agencies. Working with US Senator Jennings Randolph (D-WV) - a noted humanitarian- and Lord Harry Walston of the United Kingdom and others, Whelan helped the AER to gain United Nations recognition in 1985. Whelan joined AER's Committee of Honor and rose to become AER's vice chairman, where he presided at a number of international conferences in the late 1980s

He died at his home in Amherstburg on February 19, 2013 following complications from heart disease and colon cancer.[4][5] His funeral was held on February 23, 2013 at St. John The Baptist Church in Amherstburg, and he was buried in the church cemetery. Jean Chrétien, Herb Gray and Remo Mancini were among the people that gave eulogies at the service.[35]